AppSense Centralizes File Access Management

Mid-Market Cloud Services Adoption Trends

When it comes to compliance, the biggest issue that IT organizations face is that there is no central control and command function through which data is accessed. End users typically access a range of files that are housed in any number of applications and servers.

Looking to bring some order to the chaos, AppSense has released DataNow Enterprise, a version of its data access and management platform that allows end users to synchronize files regardless of whether they reside on premise or in the cloud.

Time and again, IT organizations are tasked with compliance policies that they don’t have the tools to enforce. According to Mike Mills, chief technologist for mobile at AppSense, DataNow Enterprise provides a central repository through which access to all corporate data can be managed. As such, DataNow Enterprise simplifies access to data for end users who may be using any number of devices, while giving IT a central location through which they can apply compliance polices at the file level.

Given the number of breaches that now seem a regular occurrence, a lot of organizations are more aware of the true cost to the business when files go missing. That generally results in a lot of interest in data loss prevention (DLP) products. But Mills says those tools have limited success. IT organizations need a more comprehensive approach to how files get accessed, by whom, and under what conditions. For example, it may be acceptable for someone to access a file on their own device when it is attached to the corporate network, but when that same device is attached to a public Wi-Fi network, a whole other range of rules concerning file access should be applied.

The challenge is finding a way to broadly apply those policies in the simplest way possible. For most IT organizations, right now that means visiting every single file system to apply policies that will be both continually updated and expanded for the foreseeable future.